Tag: southwestern

When we moved into this house two years ago (my goodness, time flies!), the walls were a dingy, rental white with chipped grey trim. I have never been a fan of white. I rarely utilize white. I adore color!

BeforeAfter

I have kept a notebook of magazine clippings of loved décor for the past fifteen years or so. As I flipped through the worn pages I discovered something; every single room had white/cream walls. All of them.

“I’m surprised you are painting the walls white,” Shyanne responded on text after I sent her the first wall completed.

BeforeI am still working on organizing this corner, but it will be a sweet little space for writing and dreaming. I moved the desk so that I could put up a folding table to hold more plants under the window.

As soon as we moved in two years ago, I painted the walls warm yellow with a library brown trim and they were lovely. This house is nearly one hundred years old, adobe, build in a proper style where the windows and eves are set just right so that in the summer the sun is above the house and in the winter, the sun floods through the windows. I can touch the ceilings. This house wasn’t built by tall people, y’all. The result is that it feels almost cave-like sometimes and remarkably cozy. With all my bright colors and plants though, it felt cluttered.

Before

So, what the heck, right? I went and chose a crisp with a touch of cream, white paint and set to work New Year’s Eve. It is amazing how dirty walls get over the years and the white paint was like a cleansing. All of the colors of my southwestern things just pop against the new gallery walls and the space feels bright and wintery. Cool and enlivening. New and fresh.

Finances and a very large puppy mean that we aren’t getting new furniture very soon but these pieces, dingy and a bit torn as they may be, become transformed with a few bright blankets.

“What do I want to devote space to?” A very good question for the new year. For me, it is my work. With all my beautiful items at the ready, I don’t have to be digging through closets and bags to find what I need for ceremony!

Next to it I placed a table with my curiosities. My bird nests and feathers.

Before (found my husband!)After

With the house nice and bright and filled with southwestern color and all my bright paintings displayed, I feel light and calm, happy and inspired. So white was the right color for me all along!

With a bit of paint, some blankets to use as throws, and a rearrangement of furniture, you can have a whole new living space designed for what you want to make space for.

It is corn season! I have put up two large bags of sweet corn from a farm ten minutes from here. My neighbor came over on her lunch break for some coffee and I put her to work. She had never shucked corn before but as we sipped our coffee she laughed as we removed corn worms and pieces of corn silk fell on her nicely pressed clothes. Many hands make light work. The more folks learn that those activities of old that take more time actually create a sense of peace of mind and calm that cannot be duplicated on social media, the more our generations will begin picking up a sewing needle, canning, and calling friends over to make soap.

I put up ten pints of basic corn, ten pints of cinnamon sugar corn, and seven half-pints of Southwestern chow-chow. “What is that?” you ask. I have no idea, I made it up. You see, I was going to make Amish chow-chow, apparently also a southern favorite, and went to following a recipe (not my strong point). I had green peppers. Then it called for red peppers, except my peppers haven’t turned red yet, but I did have a poblano and an Anaheim green chili in the garden. So those went in instead. I don’t love a lot of onion so I cut that amount down sharply. No garlic? Now, now, we must have garlic. Three cloves. By the time I was done I had a corn relish indeed, and it smelled heavenly, but it was made from a southwestern garden and it shows!

Southwestern Relish (Chow-chow)

4 cups of corn

2 large green peppers, diced

2 poblano or green chili peppers, diced

1/8-1/4 cup of red onion, diced

3 stalks of celery, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

3/4 cup of sugar

1 Tbsp sea salt

1 Tbsp smoked salt (optional)

1 Tbsp mustard powder

1 ts celery salt

1/2 ts of turmeric

2 cups of apple cider vinegar

Put everything but the corn in a good sized pan and boil for 5 minutes. Add the corn and boil another 5 minutes. Pour into 1/2 pints or pint jars leaving 3/4 inch headspace. Clean rims, replace warm lids. Water bath boil (in any old pot with water covering jars) for 15 minutes plus 1 minute per 1000 ft above sea level (I live at 4500 ft so I just round up to an extra 5 minutes.) Makes 8 pints.

Now we have a pile of corn cobs sky high on the counter. The chickens love them but there is more to do to them before the chickies get ’em. I already made several pints of plain, good, clear corn broth for soups and cooking throughout the winter but I want something in the root cellar with a little spunk. So, I made several quarts of red chile corn broth. And it is simple enough.

Red Chile Corn Broth- Just pile up a large stew pot with corn cobs, onion, celery, a head of garlic, an onion, and a good helping of dried chili (red or green). Add a bit of salt and pepper (you’ll add more seasoning as you cook with it so you don’t need much). Fill it with water and simmer it for 2 hours. Then ladle it into clean, warm quart jars leaving 1 inch headspace. Clean the rim and replace the lid. Pressure can for 25 minutes. (10 pounds of pressure for most folks, all the weights for us high altituders.)

Mama mia! This is when I need an army of friends to help me clean up this kitchen!

Katie Lynn Sanders is an urban Farmgirl, writer, Mama, Grammie, and herbalist. Katie lives with her husband, Gandalf the Great Pyrenees, kitties, and seven chickens in a hundred year old adobe in Pueblo. She is the writer of two blogs; FarmgirlSchool.org and DancingWithFeathers.com. You can find all of Katie's books at www.AuthorKatieSanders.com